In 2008, Barack Obama swept into office with two-thirds of the millennial vote, bringing with him strong Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. In 2012, millennials turned out and voted for Obama at roughly the same rate, helping make his reelection possible. Since the election, however, there has been a decided downturn in support for Democrats among Americans ages 18 to 29.
Last semester, the Harvard Public Opinion Project released results showing that only 41 percent of millennials approved of Obama’s performance as president; furthermore, only 31 percent of those ages 18 to 24 identified as Democrats. Both of these numbers are the lowest HPOP has recorded in the past four years. This effect extends beyond Obama. In the 2013 Virginia gubernatorial race, Democratic victor Terry McAuliffe won only 45 percent of the millennial vote, not significantly greater than Republican Ken Cuccinelli’s 40 percent. As the 2014 midterm elections approach, results like these are helping to stoke fears (or raise hopes) that millennials are losing faith in Democrats. “There’s nothing to say young people are born Democratic,” reminded John Della Volpe, director of polling at Harvard’s Institute of Politics, in an interview with the HPR.
A COMING-OF-AGE PROBLEM?
A recent Pew report entitled “Millennials in Adulthood” explores one potential explanation for the decline in millennials’ support for Obama and the Democrats. The report examined the results of a telephone survey conducted earlier this year and noted that Obama’s approval ratings plummeted from 70 percent in the “honeymoon months” of early 2009 to 49 percent in January and February of 2014. It also found that portions of the millennial generation vote differently depending on the performance of the president in office when they came of age.
The concept is intriguing, but it fails to consider millennials as a collection of diverse individuals rather than a uniform voting bloc, entirely politically dependent on circumstance. Moreover, even considered as a voting bloc, millennials might be fundamentally different from previous generations in the way they identify with parties. Both of these concepts are key to understanding the news buzz around “how Democrats are losing millennials.”
Results from HPOP can more fully explain millennials’ declining support for Democrats. Since 1999, HPOP has conducted and analyzed polls each semester on the political views of millennials. Its recent surveys have consistently asked respondents about their approval or disapproval of Obama, Democrats, and Republicans, providing a useful guide to yearly changes.
However, such dramatic changes are far from unprecedented. A quick analysis reveals that Obama’s level of support has oscillated wildly over the course of his administration. The recent drop may be primarily a short-term phenomenon, dovetailing closely with attitude shifts among the U.S. electorate as a whole. These numbers may pose temporary problems for Democrats, but given how quickly Obama’s poll numbers have recovered on other occasions, they alone are unlikely to derail the party’s midterm prospects. More interesting, and potentially more worrisome, for Democrats is the long-term difference in how millennials identify with parties.
THE OBAMA EFFECT ON A DIVERSE ELECTORATE
The Spring 2012 HPOP report divided the millennial electorate into four camps: “New Progressives,” “New Conservatives,” “New Religious,” and “New Passives.” The first two groups are self-explanatory: they represent the core Democratic and Republican supporters, respectively, and in any election cycle they are highly unlikely to vote for the opposite party. The New Religious group, on the other hand, is composed mainly of minorities who support a larger federal government but are more socially conservative than many Democrats. Their key distinguishing feature is the important role religion plays in their lives. Finally, the New Passives are less religiously and politically active but lean libertarian.
According to the Tufts-based CIRCLE, millennial turnout changes dramatically between midterm and presidential election years, from an average of 22.7 percent to an average of 44 percent. However, among Americans ages 30 and older, this turnout gap is smaller: from 54.9 percent in midterms to 68.2 percent in presidential elections. Felicia Sullivan, a senior researcher at CIRCLE, told the HPR that this disparity might be explained by the relative lack of excitement around issues in some midterm elections, the lack of a high-profile races, or simple inexperience in voting. Sullivan also noted the difficulties in reaching younger voters. Rather than social media, she suggested, “what really prompts [millennials] to vote is friends talking to them, getting them to vote … making sure they know how to get to the polls.”
This result is relevant to the question of millennials’ support for Democrats because it relates to Obama’s success at communicating with young people and Republicans’ comparative failure, even when well-funded: part of the reason for Republicans’ struggles could be that they are spending their money inefficiently. “Young Voter Mobilization Tactics,” a guide released by George Washington University and CIRCLE, estimated the “cost per additional vote” of various get-out-the-vote methods. The findings, which support the effectiveness of more personal methods of voter outreach, might explain the “Obama effect,” since his campaigns poured an enormous amount of energy into mobilizing the youth vote through direct outreach. As Della Volpe said, “Up until Obama, few people tried [to mobilize millennials]. Obama showed that, if you try, if you listen and empower them, put them in charge of a significant part of the campaign, they will turn out and make a difference.”
However, the “Obama effect” is not the sole explanation for millennials’ relationship with Democrats. Obama may also have benefited from a previously-existing trend toward greater political engagement among millennials.
Over the past 20 years, there has been a change in how young people select their representatives. CIRCLE analyzed a poll of millennials’ congressional votes, and, starting in 2002, they found that millennials began more strongly preferring candidates of their own party. This could be read negatively as a surge in polarization, or positively as an increase in political engagement. In either case, this trend peaked around 2008. Sullivan said, “There was definitely a bump in Obama’s election, but the trend was already well underway.” What, if not Obama, could be fueling this trend?
Sullivan sees the gap between millennial support for Democrats and Republicans as driven by the generation’s greater diversity, reflecting a more diverse electorate overall. To support this claim, she breaks down millennial support for Obama versus Romney along racial and gender lines. Not surprisingly, Obama was more popular among women than men and more popular among Hispanic and African-American voters than whites. However, the degree of the difference is startling. Obama won an astounding 98 percent of the African-American female vote but under half (41 percent) of the white male vote—the only demographic he lost. With differences this stark, Sullivan argues, “You need a white male strategy and a black female strategy … [millennials aren’t] this big monolithic group, and they’re not going to vote the same way because they’re young.”
Despite extensive research on the topic, politicians and strategists seem uncertain about how to appeal to millennials as midterm elections approach. Unquestionably, the future of campaigning will need to dramatically change to mobilize millennials on the same scale as in 2008. Yet each theory of millennial engagement suggests a different tactic. However, these theories can be combined: a generational shift in demographics could be swelling the ranks of one of the four ideological groups identified by HPOP, thus raising or lowering support for the respective parties. On top of this, changes within the groups themselves or responses to a specific policy could swing support, even independent of demographic changes. Understanding this complex interaction of demographic and ideological factors will be crucial for long after this year’s midterms—until someone definitively cracks the millennial code, the future of American politics is up for grabs.